Let Fear Fuel a Fire for Justice

“Let Fear Fuel a Fire for Justice” was preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, PA on December 28, 2025.

You can hear/watch this sermon here, starting at 36:45.
You can listen to a podcast version of the sermon here.

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Scripture text:
Matthew 2:13-23

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The first Sunday after Christmas is always a little… barren.

Let’s be honest about that. We were just here a few days ago. We lit candles on Christmas Eve. We sang Silent Night. We heard the angels, the shepherds, the good news of great joy. Some of us are still tired from hosting, traveling, cooking, or simply being around people for an extended period of time. 

And so I think a question crosses each of our minds: Do we really need to come back again to a worship service so soon? I’m glad you all said yes, but as we can see with the low attendance this Sunday, like we do every First Sunday after Christmas, most of us would say no. We do not need to come back so soon. 

Which is exactly why most of us miss the story that we heard today.

Because while Christmas Eve gives us the part of the story we know and love, the first Sunday after Christmas gives us a story we rarely tell. It’s still Christmastide and we are still in the season of celebrating the incarnation, but this story is different. And it shifts quickly.  

Our passage for today – found only in the Gospel of Matthew – is another story about the Christ Child, but it’s not gentle or nostalgic or easy to wrap up with a bow but instead it’s brutally and terribly honest about the world Jesus is born into.

An angel appears again but not to announce joy. This time the message is terrifying: Get up. Take the child. And run. 

In just a few short verses, the Gospel of Matthew tells us that after Jesus is born, Joseph is warned in a dream that Herod is searching for the child in order to kill him. Joseph takes Mary and Jesus and flees to Egypt under the cover of night, staying there until Herod dies. They leave their homeland. They cross borders. They seek refuge in a foreign land because staying where they are would put their child’s life in danger. During that time, Herod orders the slaughter of children in and around Bethlehem. When it finally seems safe to return, Joseph is warned again, and so the family moves once more, settling in Nazareth instead of Judea.

The Holy Family are refugees: people who are displaced by political violence because the fear for their own safety has forced them to migrate. This is a story about real danger and a family doing whatever they must to survive.

Biblical scholars regularly point out that the Gospel of Matthew presents Jesus as one who embodies the history of God’s people, living that story again in his own body. Egypt is the place where Israel once fled for survival, the place where survival turned into oppression, and the place from which God eventually brought them out. That’s why the Gospel of Matthew quotes the prophet Hosea: “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” In Hosea, that line originally refers to Israel itself. But here it’s making the claim: Jesus embodies the story of God’s people. 

Just as Israel escaped a murderous ruler in Pharaoh, Jesus escapes a murderous ruler in Herod. Just as Israel’s story begins with children in danger, so does Jesus’ story. And just as Israel’s salvation unfolds through exile and return, so does the life of Christ. This reoccurring message teaches us that God’s saving work has always moved through real danger and oppression.

Jesus enters the world and almost immediately the world tries to kill him. The incarnation did not happen in a safe nor just world. God takes on flesh in the middle of threat, and that threat is not even vague. It has a face. It has a ruler. It has policies. It has armed power behind it. Herod is not just “a bad guy.” He is a political leader who uses fear to protect his rule and his fear becomes lethal. He demands the slaughter of children. 

And if that is the world Jesus is born into and if Jesus embodies the story of God’s people, let’s be honest about the world we are living in now.

We are watching the rise of Christian nationalism, and it is not “politics” or “culture wars.” This is a movement that corruptly fuses Christian identity with national identity, and then insists that real belonging, real safety, and real power should be reserved for a narrow kind of people. It takes Christian symbols and language as pretty wrapping and a pretty bow on domination and power. It claims the name of Christ while preaching a gospel of control.

Christian nationalism is built on fear: fear of losing power and fear of cultural change and fear of no longer being centered and fear of sharing a country with people who are different. And because it is fear shaped by holding onto power, it uses that fear to oppress others. It becomes rhetoric and policies and threats and violence. That fear becomes lethal.

And we do not have to guess who are being targeted.

Christian nationalism consistently targets immigrants and refugees, and it frames their presence as danger. It targets Black and Brown communities through narratives of crime and disorder to justify policing and punishment. It targets queer and trans people, especially young people, with a fixation that is both political and spiritual, as if their existence is a threat to the moral order. It targets women’s bodies and their autonomy. It targets religious minorities and anyone who does not fit the vision of a Christian nation. It targets educators, libraries, and truth-tellers. It trains hearts to harden by narrowing dignity to only a small circle of those in power.

The Holy Family are exactly the kind of people Christian nationalism would reject: a brown family fleeing from violence, crossing borders out of necessity, dependent on refuge in a foreign land… all because their child is in danger. 

I was listening to a podcast and The Rev. Dr. Rolf Jacobson, a professor at Luther Seminary, said something along the lines of: Christian faith is a serious witness to God’s response to the horrors of the human condition. In other words, Christianity is not a denial of what is terrifying and brutal and unjust in the world. It tells the truth about it and then insists that God still enters into it.

And that’s what this story in the Gospel of Matthew is showing us.

This story is not safe for anybody. Not for Mary and Joseph. Not for Jesus. Not for the children in Bethlehem. Not for anyone living under corrupt power. 

But Jacobson continued to reflect and said what is at stake is worth God becoming human anyway. Worth vulnerability and risk and suffering and death. The same corrupt power, the same empire of domination and violence that threatens Jesus at the beginning is the same corrupt power that will kill him at the end. But this power does not get the final word. It is not the empire, but the Spirit of God who raises Jesus and defeats death. 

Christian nationalism wants a Christ who blesses the empire. It wants a country built upon corrupted religion that makes people feel justified in oppressing others. It wants a church and a country that calls control “wisdom” when it leads to exclusion and calls cruelty “strength” when it oppresses marginalized people and communities. 

But yet we have a God who enters danger, identifies with the oppressed, and confronts corrupt power not by joining it, but by enduring it and overcoming it through the life-giving and life-raising power of God. What is at stake is the very life we have been promised. 

The world is still dangerous. And Christ still willingly enters into it. 

Is love worth it?
Is justice worth it?
Is solidarity worth it?
Is protecting life worth it?

The incarnation tells us that God believes it is. It is all worth it! 

Following this sermon, please listen to this spoken word piece by Micah Bournes titled “Is Justice Worth It?”

Faith looks like witnessing the horrors of humanity as fuel to ignite love— until that love moves us and justice becomes more than an idea. Justice is the very incarnation of Christ because the presence of God becomes visible again, right in the middle of a world still trembling.

Is justice worth it? Yes! 

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.

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Graphic design by Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org

Even in Our Fear, We Are Called Forward

 “Even in Our Fear, We Are Called Forward” was preached at First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, PA on December 21, 2025.

You can listen to the podcast of the sermon here.

 

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Scripture texts:

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Luke 1:26-38

 

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Many of us might have learned that fear is a problem that must be overcome. Or that feeling fear is a negative emotion that we are supposed to push down. Or maybe we feel something along the lines of if we were truly faithful, truly trusting God; we would feel calmer, steadier, more certain, less afraid. Somewhere along the way we’ve been taught that the answer to fear is courage, as if courage and fear are opposites, standing on two sides of the spectrum. You’re either afraid or you’re courageous.

 

But that way of thinking doesn’t actually match how faith works or how scripture works or even how being human works.

 

Because courage is not the opposite of fear.

 

If courage were the opposite of fear, then the people God calls in scripture would have already failed before they’ve even begun. It would mean that fear disqualifies them (or us) from faithfulness and following the call given to anyone as a disciple of Christ.

 

The people God calls are often filled with fear. Mary felt fear. Jeremiah felt fear. John the Baptist felt fear. The prophets and the disciples felt fear. Fear shows up again and again in the stories where God is doing something new.

 

So before we go any further, we must all be on the same page about fear. Fear is not a negative emotion.

 

This past summer, many of our children spent a week learning about emotions – fear, sadness, joy, anger, and love – at our Vacation Bible School. One of the core messages they heard was that all of these emotions are part of being human. God’s people throughout the Bible felt them. Jesus felt them too.

 

Jesus felt fear! That was the very first message to our children on Day 1. That if they were scared being at VBS or afraid being away from their parents, it was okay because Jesus knows that fear too.

 

Very often fear shows up because something matters to us. Fear often rises when something we care deeply about is at risk. To say that fear is something we shouldn’t feel actually contradicts the faith we’ve been trying to form: not just in our children but in ourselves.

 

So as we continue our Advent journey today, we’re not asking how to become fearless. Instead we’re asking a more honest and more faithful question: what does it look like to move forward when we are afraid?

 

Because again and again, fear is often the place where calling begins.

 

Bcecause of that, I want to focus on our Jeremiah passage. Jeremiah is not the prophet we turn to in Advent because the book of Jeremiah is rooted in sadness and anger and protest and grief. All of this is wrapped up in a deep ongoing lament to God.

Jeremiah is actually nicknamed “The Weeping Prophet” by some biblical scholars and theologians. He feels deeply, and he speaks from that place of deep feeling, even when it costs him dearly. Jeremiah‘s nickname actually inspired the name of my own blog, The Weeping Christian, that I named when I was 22 and in seminary. And if you think that name is bad, you should hear the name of my first email account. But that’s a story for another time.

 

In today’s reading Jeremiah responds to God’s call with doubt, excuses, and fear. Jeremiah is not just making an excuse that he feels he is too young, he is honestly assessing his risk. Jeremiah understands that answering this call will place him in danger. He will be asked to speak words people do not want to hear. He will confront kings, priests, and systems of power. He will name injustice, violence, and betrayal at a time when denial and silence would have been far safer.

 

And as Jeremiah’s story unfolds, his fear proves well-founded. His life does not get easier once he says yes. He is mocked and ridiculed. He is beaten and imprisoned. At one point, he is thrown into a cistern and left to die. He watches his beloved city of Jerusalem fall. He witnesses exile, devastation, and loss on a scale that overwhelms him. Repeatedly Jeremiah cries out to God in grief, sometimes wishing he had never been born.

 

Jeremiah knows fear. He knows sadness. He knows anger. He knows despair. His book is filled with lament and unresolved grief. And yet for all of that emotional intensity, something never happens.

 

Jeremiah never stops feeling.

 

Even when he is exhausted, even when he is angry with God, even when his hope is barely there, he remains deeply engaged with God, with his people, and with the world as it actually is.

 

And that distinction matters.

 

That distinction matters because fear does not automatically lead us toward faithfulness or away from it. Fear, on its own, is not the deciding factor. What shapes us is what we do with fear once it arrives, and whether we are willing to stay in relationship with it rather than letting it take over or shut us down.

 

Earlier this Advent, many of our small groups read an article from Psychology Today titled “Making Friends with Fear,” written by Denise Fournier, a psychologist who writes about emotional health and resilience. In that article, Fournier suggests that fear becomes less destructive when we approach it intentionally rather than instinctively. She names three postures that help keep fear from hardening: curiosity, compassion, and courage.

 

These postures offer a way of staying present to fear without being ruled by it. They don’t remove fear, and they don’t deny its reality. Instead they create space for fear to be understood and engaged in ways that keep us connected.

 

We begin with curiosity. Curiosity slows us down enough to notice what fear is actually pointing toward. Rather than reacting immediately or trying to silence fear, curiosity asks why this moment feels different, what feels at risk, and what might be asking for our attention. Being curious about our fear can also reveal what we value most, both as individuals and as a community. We tend to fear losing what we love.

 

Alongside curiosity comes compassion. Without compassion, fear quickly turns inward and becomes shame. Compassion reminds us that fear is a human response to uncertainty and risk but not as a failure or a lack of faith. We are not only called to extend compassion to others when they are afraid; we are also called to offer ourselves compassion and grace when fear shows up in our own lives.

 

And then there is courage, not as the opposite of fear, but as the willingness to remain responsive while fear is still present. Courage is the decision to take the next faithful step even when we are afraid. Courage does not require fear to be resolved before we act; it refuses to let fear make all the decisions for us.

 

But when fear is not met with curiosity, compassion, and courage; it begins to harden. Untended fear often collapses inward, becoming numbness, where we stop feeling because feeling hurts too much. Or it spreads outward into apathy, where caring for anything beyond ourselves begins to feel pointless. Fear does not disappear in these moments; it changes shape. And that change is where danger enters.

 

Courage is not the opposite of fear. The opposite of fear, as seen in the stories throughout scripture, is a hardened heart.

 

Scripture understands this distinction well. One of the clearest examples appears in the book of Exodus, in the figure we know as Pharaoh. The Pharaoh of Exodus is never named in the text, which in itself is telling. He becomes less a historical individual and more a symbol of hardened power. In Exodus we hear several times that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.

 

Pharaoh witnesses suffering up close. He hears the cries of the enslaved. He sees the consequences of his decisions. And still nothing breaks through. Pharoah’s hardened heart causes violence and oppression to continue.

 

Another example is King Saul. Or more relevant to our Advent series, King Herod. Even the disciples become hardened as named in the Gospel of Mark, but fortunately their hardened hearts are healed.

 

That is the danger scripture warns us about. Fear becomes dangerous only when it is left unattended; when it hardens inward into numbness or turns outward into apathy, both cutting us off from hope.

 

This brings us finally to Mary.

 

When the angel Gabriel comes to Mary she asks real questions. She takes in what is being said to her. And then her response is thoughtful, embodied, and courageous. She says yes, but her yes does not come from certainty; it comes from trust formed in the midst of fear.

 

Mary and Jeremiah echo one another here. Both are called into something that will cost them deeply. Both respond with fear. Both ask questions. Both move forward anyway. It is the courage to keep responding to God’s call while fear remains part of their story. And the worst of Mary’s fears will happen; Mary will see her baby boy as a young man executed on the cross.

 

Many of us are carrying fear about the future. Fear about our own lives and the roads we might take. Fear about our children and the world they are inheriting. Fear about our country and our democracy and our climate and our communities, and the direction all of these things seem to be moving.

 

But here is something important to notice. When we are afraid for the future – our future, our country’s future, the world’s future – that fear is not empty. It means there is still something in us that cares deeply about what could be. It means we still carry hope, even if that hope feels fragile or exhausted. Fear for the future often reveals longing for a better future filled with authenticity, joy, love, and relationships. We do not fear losing what we have already given up on. We fear losing what we believe still matters.

 

Friends, the danger is not that we are afraid. The danger is that we might allow fear to harden our hearts. The danger is allowing fear to make us give up on hope.

 

God’s work does not depend on our fearlessness but on our willingness to keep responding even though we are afraid.

 

So when you find yourself afraid, let that fear tell you something true. Let it name what you value. Let it remind you that you are still connected, still invested, and still hoping. And then, with fear and courage walking hand-in-hand, take the next faithful step forward.

 

Because even in our fear, we are still being called. And even now, God is still at work. Amen.

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Graphic design by Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org